Morgan Ricketts, Dutch give back at Special Olympics

Monday

Feb 24, 2014 at 11:00 AM

By Michael.Appelgate@hollandsentinel.com(616) 546-4271

For Morgan Ricketts and members of her Holland girls basketball team, their service project was a short respite from the long season.But to those who they were helping, it was something much more.The Dutch practiced with and then were referees for a Special Olympics team two weeks ago. Ricketts’ mother is a coach of a team that plays at Jefferson School."It was a great experience with the girls and it was a different environment," Ricketts said. "The girls enjoyed it and our team really enjoyed being around them. They were always happy and they loved playing with us."Holland coach Matt LeFebre said his team has wanted to perform some sort of service project this year, and couldn’t pass up this opportunity."You just see how much people love the game and how much fun the game is," LeFebre said. "At this stage in the season, basketball can get laborious. You can see some of the girls were nervous at first, but by the end of the night they were pretty comfortable."The brief respite might do the team some good when it faces West Ottawa on Monday in district competition at 7 p.m. at West Ottawa. The Panthers went through the OK Red Conference with a perfect record, while Holland has struggled all year and is 3-17 overall.Despite the record, Ricketts has been a force on offense for the Dutch. While their record may not show it, Holland has improved throughout the season from its opening games. Ricketts has much to do with that, and she is committed to play basketball at Division III Aurora (Ill.) University."She just works hard," LeFebre said. "She comes from an athletic family so she is wired that way. … She worked at it, too. She has shot a lot in the summer time and that’s just what she wants to do. A lot of that is just hard work paying off for her. She makes us go. When she’s not on the court, we’re in trouble."Aurora is 12-14 this season."As soon as I got on campus, I liked the small campus feel and then I met with the coach and it felt right," she said.Ricketts had a couple of schools she was looking at, but there was one that she didn’t consider at all.She’s the daughter of Hope football defensive coordinator, Mike Ricketts."I was looking at other schools," she said. "I was not looking at Hope. I want to get away."